memories fade (but the scars still linger)
by hiddlestonedxx
Summary: They ended with promises that they knew would eventually be broken. "I'll come back." "I'll wait for you." He doesn't regret breaking his. CaB. NB.


But burned into my brain are these stolen images,  
Stolen images, baby, stolen images.  
Can you picture it,  
Babe, the life we could've lived?

\- _Without_ _You_ , Lana Del Rey -

* * *

It's been what, eight years since they'd last seen each other, but when he sees her again, standing in the middle of the Ponte Vecchio and looking over the Arno river, his heart palpitates like crazy, like he's twenty again, like he's experiencing love for the first time.

It hadn't ended badly between them, but it hadn't ended well, either. The last thing they'd ever said to each other weren't I love yous, they were half-meant insults meant to mask how much their hearts ached.

 _"I hope you're miserable over there."_

 _"Don't sleep with the entire city while I'm gone."_

They ended with promises that they knew would eventually be broken.

 _"I'll come back."_

 _"I'll wait for you."_

He doesn't regret breaking his.

Florence has been good to him, in more ways than one , in the two years he's stayed. It's not too rainy, like in London (where he'd spent two months studying economics before deciding once again that it was not for him), nor is it too crowded like the busy streets of Barcelona (where he had fled Serena van der Woodsen when she decided to spend a semester abroad and showed up at his most frequented bar.)

He likes Florence, and how nothing is as hectic as it had been in Manhattan, and he likes it even with the rare flamboyant Upper East Sider on vacation he spots and desperately wishes not to be spotted by.

(He won't tell anybody this, but he still prefers Paris to Florence, and it's most certainly not because of the fuzzy, eight-year-old memories held there, memories of silk sheets and kisses smelling of cigarettes and Chanel perfume - the ones that buried themselves into his mind under the collective title, "Blair.")

Florence is easy, and he's glad he'd stayed.

But seeing her now, hair down to her back, her dress flowing around her knees and eyes shining in the moonlight like they always did as she leaned against the parapet, made his stomach twist into knots. She notices him a few feet to her right and looks slightly surprised for a moment, before turning away. A few years shy of thirty and she still looks stunning, just like the teenaged bitch he'd fallen for. But in her eyes there's this look he can't place.

(That's a lie. He's seen that only one other time before, and that was the day he'd left.)

For some reason, that look makes him falter briefly, a familiar but long unfelt ache in his chest.

She's playing with a silver cigarette case - not the one he'd left her, eight years ago - and staring off into the night view. She's only a few meters away, so he throws all the fucks he gave out the window and approaches her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him moving closer, pulls out a cigarette from the case and lights it just as he reaches her. "Baizen," she nods brusquely, taking a long drag before finally turning to look at him.

"Waldorf," he replies, the word feeling foreign as it rolls off his tongue. He thinks to himself that he should've spoken first, just so he could call her _beautiful_ like he always has. There's a pause.

"Archibald," she corrects softly, lifting her free hand to show him the ring that adorns her finger.

Carter almost laughs. Definitely didn't hold back from making that blow. "Nathaniel? Really?" He's about to tease her about her high school fantasies of marrying St. Jude's golden boy when she turns to him in annoyance.

"Couldn't spend my life waiting for someone who had no intention of coming back," she says, her calm voice mismatched with her stony expression. A part of her wants to chastise herself for such a dramatic retort, but she's Blair Waldorf, and that's always to be expected.

"So you came here instead," he raises an eyebrow and leans back against the balcony railing, giving her that same Baizen smirk he always used to.

Blair nearly crumples up the cigarette in her hand before realizing that it's still lit. Instead, she takes another shaky drag. "I'm here on a more important matter, mind you," she says, nearly seething. "So don't flatter yourself, Baizen. I didn't even know you were here." He chuckles and shakes his head, but says no more on the matter. Instead, he inquires about Nate.

"Where is Mr. Archibald?" he stops himself from grimacing. "I haven't seen him in a while, I figure I should give him congratulations."

"I've yet to figure that out myself," Blair says, her voice steady unlike her fingers. "He's been on a lot of _business trips_ this past month," she adds, almost bitterly. "Where has Serena been spotted last? I'm more than sure Nate's off with her doing God-knows-what."

Carter gets it now. He wants to ask her if she regrets marrying Nate, but from the way Blair is taking drag after drag of those awful Marlboro Black Menthols she used to hate, he supposes she doesn't want to talk about it. He changes the subject again.

"Still smoking, Blair?" he asks, feigning disappointment. "I thought you'd have kicked the habit by now," he adds.

Blair doesn't want to respond, mostly because she's been doing such a good job at giving him frigid replies up to this point, but she decides to humor him. "One of the things that stuck," she shrugs, before smiling very softly. "I've been trying to switch to Lights at least, since Nate's mom thinks it'll give us trouble to conceive." She visibly shudders at the thought.

Carter smiles wanly. "How long have you two been married?"

She answers straight away, like she'd just been thinking of that minutes before. "It'll be six years in June." He thinks back on where he was in June, six years ago, and if he'd had the time to go. Blair looks at him before putting out her cigarette.

"I didn't know where to send your invitation," she explains, even though he didn't ask. "Your parents were there. Told me that last they heard, you were in Budapest." He nods, remembering.

"Then you were in Barcelona," she continues. He's not surprised the blonde has told her of how he quickly darted out of the bar once she approached him. He nods, again. Her gaze stays on him, and this time she doesn't play down her smile, but it's still a sad one.

The ache in his chest grows stronger, and Carter grimaces because he never did know how to deal with emotions like the ones he only ever experience with the brunette standing next to him.

He wraps an arm around her tentatively, and she lets her head drop to lean against his chest. "I really am sorry, Blair. I'm sorry I left you. I'm sorry I didn't take you with me. I'm sorry I let you marry him." That's all he can apologize for, because he's not really sorry for not coming back, even though he would always imagine stepping into her penthouse, and without a word, kiss her like he needs her to breathe.

"It's just - New York isn't for me. You know that," he says weakly. "It's not even home," he continues. "I couldn't deal with it and- and I know I couldn't make you let that go."

 _"Do you think we'll have that one day, B?" Serena says, her eyes glued to a young couple playing with their toddler, no older than four. They're in Central Park, and Blair looks at them for a few moments before her gaze travels to Carter, sitting next to her._

 _"Maybe."_

"It's what you want, Blair. It's what you've always planned."

She laughs humorlessly, because really, when has anything in her life ever gone to plan? She tells him this. "All I wanted at nineteen was to be a Yale graduate," she adds. "I'm currently a member of the Columbia Alumni Association. By twenty-seven, I wanted to be living in a townhouse on Park Avenue, pregnant with-"

"With whose child, Blair?" He interrupts, leaning away from her. He shakes his head and turns away. "Please don't say mine."

Her heart drops to her stomach once the words come out of his mouth, and she looks down at her hands, vision blurring. "If you had just talked to me about it, I would've considered-" He cuts her off once more.

"That's why I didn't want to come back, Blair. That's why, even though I wanted to see you every day for the past eight years, I didn't dare go back to New York. I didn't want you to give up the life you've always dreamed of. You've lost so many things. Your dad, Yale, Chuck Bass... I couldn't take away what was left for you. I wanted you to be happy."

There's silence. "Carter, I'm not happy," she whispers. He swallows the lump in his throat as she continues. "I wish I was, honestly. After you left, when Nate and I..." she sighs deeply. "I thought I was. But I woke up every morning feeling empty and alone, and I went to bed every night feeling the same way. What I had - have with Nate is never going to be what I had with you," she says, willing her voice not to crack. "And you know what? That's fine. It's the life I have now. But don't come back into my life telling me that you didn't want a future with me in the first place because you wanted me to be _happy_. Because I'm not. Don't you dare think that you leaving me did me any favors."

She pulls out another cigarette, hands shaking, and she manages to close the case and put it in her pocket right before the stick drops from her hands and into the Arno river. "Shit," she mutters, running a hand through her hair in frustration before turning to Carter once more.

"I think I'm gonna go," she tells him, and he doesn't even have the time to respond as she quickly turns around and quickly walks away. He chokes out her name, wants to put his arms around her and breathe in her scent, but the rest of his words get stuck in his throat and sink down to his feet, and he finds he can't move.

But he doesn't have to.

Blair's walked off about twenty feet away when she stops and turns around, anger still evident in her eyes. She walks back up to him and raises a hand to slap him. His hand flies up and grips hers, and her eyes soften slightly as he gives her a small smile.

Eight years of heartache and she still loves him. And he can still tell.

Florence holds new memories for him.

Ones of a seemingly endless week holed up in her room at the St. Regis, watching sunsets and sunrises and kissing each other until they couldn't breathe, and they stay in his mind even after she leaves one morning, leaving nothing behind but a silver cigarette case and the scent of Chanel.

 **A/N: Also posted on AO3. Part 1/2. There needs to be more Blair/Carter in this world. Come on, people. I can't possibly be the only one left. If I am, that would be terrible because there are so many more talented Blair/Carter writers out there! (Yes, I'm talking to all of you who've published Blair/Carter fics on here. I've scoured FFN and I've found them all. They're all amazing. I love you.**


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